Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte

M.J. did a lot of things before figuring out that what he really wanted to do is write whimsical novels. When he was 15 he ran away from his home in Toronto and hitchhiked across Canada to Vancouver, where he got a job in Vancouver flipping burgers. Along the way he made and sold drawings to earn meal money.

He spent the next few years travelling extensively around the US and Canada, working at odd jobs. He was a garbage man in Iowa, cleaned cafeterias in Newport Beach California, washed dishes in Vancouver B.C., drove a truck in Alberta, and buffed floors in London Ontario.